Pineville tramples Berea

Lions rack up 543 yards on the ground in 42-6 victory

By Anthony Cloud - Sports Editor

Anthony Cloud | Daily News Lawrence Simpson runs through an arm tackle against Jackson County earlier in the season. The senior running back tallied 236 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries during Pineville’s 42-6 victory over Berea on Friday.

Pineville got a much needed win on Friday when they hosted Berea. The team racked up 543 yards on the ground en route to a 42-6 victory over the Pirates.

The win evens up the Mountain Lions record on the year and helps get rid of the taste of the Paris loss a week earlier.

“Obviously, Berea is not the caliber team that Paris is. For that matter, we obviously aren’t either. Paris is a very good football team, and they took us to the woodshed,” said Pineville coach Bart Elam. “It was good to get back on the field and have some good things happen and get a win.

“We were also more prepared. We went into Paris without Reese (Capps) taking any snaps in practice the whole week as a quarterback. That wasn’t the case this past week. We knew a little bit better how to play our personnel this week. We still did some terrible things, and we’re going to do them all year just because we’re so young and inexperienced. We also did some great things.”

Things probably couldn’t go any better for Pineville on the offensive side of the ball from a stats standpoint. The Lions had three runners surpass the century mark on Friday. Lawrence Simpson led the way with 236 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries.

Reese Capps followed that up with 191 yards and three touchdowns on 14 carries. Matt Golden ended the game with eight carries for 105 yards and helped convert two two-point conversion attempts.

Defensively, Pineville held the Pirates to 140 yards rushing and 42 yards passing. Deon Coffman and Nick Holbrook led the team in tackles with 13 apiece. Sean Whitehead also finished in double digits with 10 tackles on the night.

“(Berea) came in and showed a different offense that we hadn’t seen on film — kind of the double wing stuff that you would see years ago from Estill County. We were able to at halftime make some adjustments and explain to the kids what was going on,” said Elam. “(The kids) did a better job the second half. I thought all in all our defense gave up six points, and really the only six points gained was when we gave them a short field with a special teams mishap. You give any team a short field they’re probably going to take advantage of it.

“I was proud of the way the defense played. There was a lot of kids that got reps in a lot of different spots. We’re still a work in progress, but they had a pretty good night.”

Up Next

Pineville (2-2) will travel to Middlesboro (1-3) at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

Berea (0-4) returns to action on Sept. 22 when they travel to Paris (3-0).

Reach Anthony Cloud at 606-302-9090 or on Twitter @AnthonyCloudMDN

Anthony Cloud | Daily News Lawrence Simpson runs through an arm tackle against Jackson County earlier in the season. The senior running back tallied 236 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries during Pineville’s 42-6 victory over Berea on Friday.

http://www.middlesborodailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_Simpson.jpgAnthony Cloud | Daily News Lawrence Simpson runs through an arm tackle against Jackson County earlier in the season. The senior running back tallied 236 yards and three touchdowns on 12 carries during Pineville’s 42-6 victory over Berea on Friday.